


Thankful For You

by easilydistractedbyfanfic



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bonding, Developing Friendships, F/M, Friendship, On the ring, Pre-Relationship, Spacekru mentions, Thanksgiving, a few curse words, six years in space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-26 07:37:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16677364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easilydistractedbyfanfic/pseuds/easilydistractedbyfanfic
Summary: Raven & Murphy figure out they're thankful for each other during the years on The Ring.





	Thankful For You

**Author's Note:**

> It's Thanksgiving season in the US, where I'm from, and I wanted to write a little fic to say a big THANK YOU to all the readers who have embraced my stories since I started writing a few months ago. To everyone who has left a kudos and especially a comment, on any of my works here - I really appreciate it and they genuinely make my day! Thanks for interacting with me and I love that we enjoy these characters together!
> 
> I wish you all much happiness - and I totally wish us all canon Murven!

 

2153

It’s sometime in early year three when he starts to notice it. It’s not anything major at first, just that Raven starts to look a little more frazzled than before, her clothes a bit more wrinkled like maybe she went to bed in them instead of changing into pajamas. And there’s a definite increase in how often she falls asleep in her workshop, which he knows because he’s never slept well since they’ve come to space, and he’s seen her slumped over her table more frequently than she should be. But it’s other things too, like how she doesn’t spend as much downtime with everyone else any more, and how she doesn’t let Harper put her hair up into those intricate hairdos any longer. He’d always liked the fancy layered braid crowns, not that he’d ever tell anyone, because it made her look so regal. But now that had all stopped, and it was clear to him that she’d decided she didn’t have time for those things, and it wasn’t that difficult to figure out why.

 

The clock was ticking on trying to get them back to Earth, and Raven was putting every bit of energy she had into finding a solution to get them there. If there wasn’t an urgent break-down on the Ring taking her attention, then she was sitting in on piloting simulations with Emori, or taking apart some scrap they’d gathered and trying to repurpose it into something useable. Every other minute was spent theorizing and testing methods to get them home. She’d been busy, by necessity, since the moment they could all breathe when they’d arrived, but it had gone to another level now, and Murphy was starting to get concerned for her.

 

Well, maybe ‘starting’ was the wrong word… he’d always felt guilty that so much responsibility was on her shoulders even though there were six others on the Ring with her, even in the beginning. Monty definitely pulled the next heaviest load, but his attention was often on the maintenance of the algae farm, leaving Raven as the one shouldering the burden of solving their biggest problem. The rest of them… well, they could help with minor things, and he know Emori learning some of the emergency responses helped Raven out… Overall, though, they each knew their roles were small when compared to hers. Murphy wasn’t exactly a team-player, but even so, he finds himself wishing more and more frequently that he was better somehow, that there was something he could do to alleviate some of Raven’s stress. Particularly because he knew that while she wanted to get back down to Earth too, she was pushing herself so hard more for the rest of them than for herself.

 

He passes by her open workshop door during one of his regular can’t-sleep prowls around the Ring, and she’s there again, sprawled over her work table that’s cluttered with wires, mathematical equations and a stack of checklists and to-do lists that he can probably barely decipher if he tried to read them. He watches through the door for a few minutes, debating whether to wake her up and urge her to bed. Sometimes when he rouses her, she’ll stumble off to her room, but other times she’ll set her jaw and refuse to go, saying she has too much work to do. And when she does that, he always thinks he should have just let her sleep on her desk, because at least then she’s resting, even if it is uncomfortable and bad for her leg. Tonight he gets lucky though - when he rubs her shoulder and repeats her name softly, she smiles sleepily at him when she raises her head, and she barely puts up a fight when he nudges her out of the room, turning the light off behind them.

 

***************

 

A few months later, it’s on his mind again after the fourth night she misses dinner - such that it is, anyway. It’s not like he doesn’t get the need to get away from everyone, because damn, he can understand that. But for Raven, she gets along with everyone much better than he does, and when she’s not around, it’s less likely to be because she needs a break and more likely to be because she’s working herself too hard. He’s heard Raven bullshit everyone into believing her when she says that if she’s in the zone that she doesn’t want to be interrupted, but first, when has he ever followed the rules, and second, he knows she’s full of crap. She only told them that so they wouldn’t nag her into coming out of her workshop so much, and while he can admire the lie and how it’s been working for her, he can’t seem to follow her orders very well when he knows they’re to her detriment. Which is how he finds himself barging in to her workshop with a mug of hot algae water one night after everyone else has finished eating and have gone off to do their own thing.

 

“Hey. You didn’t eat again.”

 

Raven looks up from the tablet in her hands, her face weary, and frowns at him. “I’m not hungry, Murphy. And I’m busy, so…”

 

“Okay, so as soon as you eat this, I’ll be on my way then.” Like she thinks she’s the only one who can play this game, he scoffs.

 

Her frown gets deeper, but he’s decided not to take it personally. “C’mon, Raven. When was the last time you ate anything? I know you’re busy, but this disgusting stuff is the only energy source we’ve got, so you gotta get it down just like I do. And I left you alone after dinner for the last three days you didn’t show, but now you’re stuck with me until you finish it, so the way I see it, this is really your own fault, not mine.”

 

Rolling her eyes, she exhales a huge sigh and then reaches her arm out for the mug. “You’re a pain in my ass.”

 

He smirks at her, knowing exactly what she means. “Takes one to know one, I guess.” He waits a bit and watches to make sure she drinks, and after she gets a decent amount down, he pokes her tablet with his finger. “What are you working on now?”

 

Smiling somewhat viciously at him, she waves her hand in the air. “Oh, you know - the continued issue of making sure we don’t explode on re-entry into the atmosphere or on crash down. Take your pick - they both need different materials and considerations, and of course they mostly work against each other. I know there’s a solution, it’s just every idea I’ve come up with so far doesn’t work in the simulations or calculations.”

 

“Well, every idea you come up with gets you another step closer, right?”

 

Twisting her lip, she reluctantly agrees. “It does… but the longer I take on this problem, the less time I have for the next two hundred steps.”

 

He shrugs one shoulder in an unconcerned way. “You work good under pressure. Probably it’s too slow and easy for you right now so you can’t figure it out. You should blow off steam and do nothing for a few weeks, watch some movies with the rest of us slackers until you start to feel guilty for ignoring this shit, then you’ll probably have a breakthrough.”

 

She laughs a little incredulously, her eyes wide. “Jesus, Murphy, go on and jinx everything, why don’t you, suggesting that everything is easy right now! Do you have any idea how much trouble we could have been in last month when that MDM data relay box went down for those few hours?”

 

“Nah, of course I don’t. Because you fixed it. And because you were under pressure and your brain kicked in like it always does. So you’re only proving my point that sometimes an emergency gets you going. Which means you can take some time to relax. I think Echo and Emori were gonna watch a movie - they’re probably about done and we can join them and weigh in on what they watch next. Let’s go.”

 

Of course she argues a little longer, but eventually he gets her out of the room and they join the others. Approximately eighteen minutes into the movie they all agree on, Raven falls asleep. Not exactly the companionship he thought she needed, but he’ll take it as a win that he got her mind off of work. And anyway, there’s always tomorrow.

 

***************

 

2154

During year four it predictably gets worse, and there’s one night where he attempts to lure her out only to find her actually _crying_ inside her workshop, and it’s one of the more panic-inducing moments of his life when he realizes what’s happening, because she so rarely ever _breaks_ like this and he has no idea what to do.

 

He completely fumbles the first few moments by just staring at her in shock, then asks her if she wants him to go get anybody.

 

“Fuck, no,” she manages to sob, “it’s bad enough you’re here.” He hurriedly shuts the door behind him, deciding that since she didn’t yell at him to get out, that must mean he can stay. He awkwardly walks over to her, completely uncertain what he should do until he’s alongside her and can see the shaking of her shoulders as she cries into her hands, and then it feels obvious. He lightly puts his arms around her shoulders as she’s sitting on her stool, and pulls her towards him. It takes a minute, but eventually her arms go around his waist as he stands next to her, and she buries her face in his shirt until she finishes crying.

 

After that it’s like she drops what’s left of her defenses with him, like maybe now he’s seen her at her worst so what’s the point of swallowing back her emotions anymore. He’s rather pleased about it, honestly, because outside of her training with Echo, she doesn’t have a lot of ways to get her frustrations out, and he doesn’t care when she vents her anger over something going wrong on the Ring on him. It kind of makes him feel useful, when he thinks about it, because if she lost her temper on one of the others, they might take it personally even though that’s not at all how she’d mean it. Him though - he’s mostly just impressed how much control she does exert over herself not to explode with all the pressure she’s under, and if she feels better after yelling and ranting at him, he has no trouble shrugging it off. It’s not even like she actively attacks _him_ so much as she just gets loud and curses a lot, sometimes getting so creative he’s legitimately impressed with what comes out of her mouth. Plus, there’s no denying that he actually likes a bit of conflict. It keeps things interesting and everything up here is so unbearably boring that he starts looking forward to the next time Raven boils over.

 

But even with her letting go a little more around him and having him as a target when she needs one, the situation remains the same - a huge problem that’s approaching fast and she’s got to solve it. The rest of the Ring inhabitants seem to fluctuate between absolute faith in Raven and her abilities to get them back down, or the undeniable fear that the solutions will fail. They’ve been careful enough not to speak negatively around her, but Murphy hears snippets here and there, talking about the ‘what if’s’ if it doesn’t happen. It’s not like he doesn’t worry about it himself - he’s been sick of this place since the first week - but he knows what kind of a toll this is all taking on her and the last thing he wants is to add to it. So he keeps his mouth shut and checks in on her more often, and if it turns out that he enjoys nagging and teasing her into a better mood, well, nobody needs to know that but him.

 

****************

 

As they come to the last three months on their calendar, Murphy’s feeling optimistic for once. Raven has finally resolved two major issues and then there’s a series of small obstacles that don’t provide her with a lot of trouble, so she’s in a better mood too. With less for him to do, Murphy spends most of his time reading on the tablet she modified for him. When they’d first arrived on the Ring, but after all the life-support systems and general comfort items had been set up, Raven had scrounged together a tablet for all of them, and it had been a lifesaver for Murphy, maybe more than she knew. She’d given him his, and with a sly grin had told him she’d put a ton of reference materials on it so that maybe one day he’d be able to keep up with her conversations. Back then, their hard-won peace with each other had still been so new that he hadn’t even managed a comeback, but he’d read just about everything she’d included, including the history books. Which may have been why he was thinking about old Earth customs and holidays one afternoon when he went in search of her.

 

“Did you know some countries used to celebrate something called Thanksgiving, where they’d talk about gratefulness and blessings, blah blah blah, but most importantly, they’d have this huge meal and eat and watch shows or sports and fall asleep? And all we got was that damned awful Unity Day crap.”

 

Raven looks up from the tablet in her hand and blinks in surprise at his entrance. “Uh, yeah. I did know about that one. Turkey, right? It was kind of weird that a few countries celebrated the same kind of holiday but not at the same time. I did always wonder what pumpkin pie tasted like though - that sounds kinda good.”

 

Murphy pulls up a stool and grins just thinking about it. “That, and stuffing, and sweet potatoes. Hell, anything’ll be better than what we have up here, but just reading about it makes me hungry.”

 

“I think the point was supposed to be more about the thankfulness and less about the food, but I can see how that got muddled. It’s hard to think about being grateful when there’s always bad stuff happening - maybe that’s why that holiday fell off the calendar.” Raven shrugs, but Murphy sees the small frown that flits across her face.

 

“Yeah, probably. I know I’m just making it worse on myself, reading about food, but I can’t help but do it anyway. I mean, even when things are bad, if you can’t find something to be positive about, or grateful for or whatever, what’s even the point? Maybe it should’ve been something humans kept celebrating.”

 

“That’s… too much optimism for my mood today, Murphy. You’ll have to bring this up again when we’re down on Earth - maybe you can single-handedly bring Thanksgiving back.”

 

He raises his eyebrows at her, not quite buying her attitude “Really? You can’t think of anything you’re grateful for, even _with_ everything going on up here?”

 

“Oh, like you can, huh? You’ve got a whole list of stuff you appreciate, is that what you’re saying? Because just yesterday you were literally banging your head on the table saying how much you hated it up here.”

 

He takes in her mocking grin, her eyes daring him to deny his actions. “We all hate it here sometimes - some of us more than others, I guess. But don’t kid yourself - we all have stuff we’re thankful for, even my selfish ass.”

 

She stares at him a few moments, and he gets the impression she’s searching for something in his expression, but he doesn’t know what. He watches her in return, and gradually her gaze softens just a little. “Maybe I do, and maybe I don’t. But gratitude isn’t going to get us home - that’s on _me_. And that’s all my brain has room for until it happens. So… just hand me that screwdriver, okay?”

 

Internally sighing, he passes her the tool she wants and spends the next couple of hours letting her moan and groan about whatever piece isn’t cooperating with her and submitting to her will. Maybe she’s closer to the edge than he thought.

 

Later that night, after dinner, he goes back to the room he shares with Emori after impulsively grabbing a piece of paper and pencil from the group’s supplies. He tries not to overthink it and it’s not long before he’s finished. He folds it and sticks it in his pocket, making a point to walk past Raven’s workshop to make sure she’s there but doesn’t go inside. When he doesn’t see anyone else around, he lets himself into her room and quickly pulls out the note, smoothing it on his leg before dropping it onto her unmade bed and hurriedly walking back out again.

 

The next afternoon, he’s on his way to the kitchen for some water when he almost bumps into her coming out of the exercise area. He’s worried for a moment that maybe he’s made it weird between them, but the way she smiles up at him lets him know that’s not gonna be an issue.

 

“Those are some mad drawing skills you have there, Murphy.” And it seems pretty clear she’s fighting back her laughter when she comments.

 

“Shut up,” he groans, because it’s not like he didn’t know she’d mock him about his simple lines, but everything at least looked like what it was supposed to, he had made certain of that.

 

She watches him with those perceptive eyes of hers, and the smile on her face fades as she gets more serious. “All kidding aside, thanks. It was nice to hear that… well, read that, anyway. The closer we get, I just feel like if it doesn’t work out, everyone’s gonna be so mad at me. There’s just so many variables to consider.”

 

“Hey. The only reason we got this far is because of all the things you’ve solved already. I meant what I wrote. Even if things don’t go like we all hope, you can’t put that on yourself. And if anybody tries to, then they’re just wrong.”

 

“Yeah. I guess we’ll see when the time comes, and there’s not much I can do about how anyone else responds anyway. Maybe you’re right - maybe I should try to relax more so I’m not so fixated. Do you want to watch a movie? I searched for thanksgiving and a few suggestions came up.”

 

“I’ll get water and meet you there.”

 

All in all, year four is tough but has its highlights.

 

***************

 

2155

Year five, on the other hand, is a shit storm of epic proportions. It’s like everyone else has picked up on the timeline stress Raven feels to get home, but unlike her, there’s not much the rest of them can do about it except regularly ask how the progress is going. And of course that just results in making her _more_ agitated. When it becomes apparent that they’re not going to get down to Earth on the schedule they’d hoped for, he gets it, he does - every one of them is disappointed and frustrated, and they don’t always handle it well. But Raven, she pulls into herself like she’s personally failed each of them, and getting her to eat becomes just about impossible. She loses weight, barely sleeps and hardly talks. He can’t even deliberately provoke her into an argument despite his best efforts, and seeing the sadness in her eyes is more painful than he would have expected.

 

Bellamy’s not much better off, since he’s pushed into a fresh round of grieving for Octavia and even Clarke when the five-year plan doesn’t work out. Murphy would feel worse for him, but considering Bellamy is probably the hardest on Raven and scolds her over how long it’s taking, he figures not actually taking a swing at him is compassion enough. Harper’s pretty broken-hearted, Monty doesn’t seem all that upset, Echo remains rather stoic about the whole thing but if you look closely, you can see there’s a pinched expression around her eyes that wasn’t there before. And Emori, well things have been coming to an overdue head for the two of them, and their fights this year have just gotten progressively worse. He doesn’t want to hurt her, but he knows that’s what he’s doing. It’s all so confusing and hard to sort out, but Murphy doesn’t feel useful to two people who matter to him any longer, and he doesn’t know how to fix it with one or whether he should with the other.

 

When Emori moves out it’s something of a relief, both of them knowing it’s the right choice even though it’s still hard, and he starts to keep to himself more and more, ultimately just giving up on being with the others at all and sticking to one side of the ship. He feels awful about abandoning Raven, but with the mess he’s got in his own head, he’s no help to himself, let alone her.

  


***************

 

Raven climbs out of her bed, reluctantly facing another day on the Ring. It would be autumn by now on Earth, she thinks, if they were down there and if things weren’t too damaged to prevent it. She remembers how the trees had looked with their amazing colors, and for a moment it’s almost like she can smell it, but the memory fades quickly and she sighs with regret. She reaches into her drawer for a clean shirt, and in the process her fingers catch on a piece of folded paper carefully hidden at the bottom. She pulls it out and smiles faintly at the rough sketch of a pie on the front, one piece already cut out and on a plate next to it. The image gets the point across, but drawing is clearly not his strong suit. Unfolding it, she reads the words that Murphy wrote to her last year, around this time, and she sits back down on her bed to think.

 

Murphy and Emori broke up again, for good they both say, but who knows. Emori has been rooming with her and it’s not as easy as Raven might have assumed, but they’ve tried to give each other some space. Emori has been getting up earlier and is often gone by the time Raven wakes, taking in a few practice simulations on her own. It’s not that Raven’s lazy, far from it, but at least when she’s sleeping she doesn’t feel the constant hammering in her head that she hasn’t lived up to her friends’ expectations. Although maybe she hasn’t disappointed everyone just yet…

 

Putting on the rest of her clothes, she folds the card and slides it in her back pocket. Listening for any noise at the door, she goes to the other hiding spot in the room and pulls out a rather flat bottle, pushing that into the waistband of her pants and making sure it’s stable before heading to her workshop for the day. She’ll stash it there and get it out again later.

 

She goes to dinner with everyone else, and they all do a good job of acting normal, but Raven can’t help but feel like there’s an undercurrent of despair going unsaid between them. In a few more months it’ll be the six year anniversary of their arrival on the Ring, and she’s really uncertain what the future holds. She’s not giving up, but she’s also not going to give anyone a timeframe for getting out of here either. When they finish, Bellamy and Echo drift off together, and Harper and Emori invite her to watch a movie with them. Monty says he’s going to keep working on a new algae recipe, but Raven volunteers to take a bowl to Murphy. The three of them look a little surprised, but none of them want to do it, so she swings by her workshop and grabs a few things before heading to his wing of the ship.

 

It’s darker when she gets to Murphy’s lair, as she deems it in her head, and it’s never going to stop being amusing to her that he’s taken over such a large space for his own. She makes her way to a window with a decent view and leans up against a nearby console as she stretches out on the floor. It isn’t her first time seeking him out, and he’s likely heard her already. He’ll come when he’s made her wait long enough, she knows.

 

It’s maybe twenty minutes later and she’s half-asleep when he joins her, imitating her position and looking out the window with a sigh. “What are you doing here, Raven?”

 

Lifting the mug of rather cold and congealed algae in his direction, she makes a disgusted face. “I brought you this, though now it’s got to be worse off than it was before, and that’s saying something. But lucky for you, I do have some other things that are much better.”

 

First she points to her tablet that’s on the floor beside her, and then she lifts her shirt up and he gets a brief glimpse of skin as she pulls the bottle out of her waistband with a flourish. “How did you get _that_ ,” he asks, his tone appropriately impressed.

 

“Don’t tell anyone, but Monty gave me my own bottle for those nights when I just can’t turn my brain off and really need some sleep. I rarely use it, but… sometimes it comes in handy.”

 

He can see by how much is left in the bottle that she’s telling the truth, and he’s not sure he could have been as disciplined.

 

Raven leans forward, her hand sliding into her back pocket and pulling out a folded slip of paper. She smoothes it with her fingers and props it open at their feet, and he has to laugh when he sees the silly pumpkin pie he drew. “You gave this to me just about a year ago. I appreciated it then and when I saw it today, I thought maybe we could use a reminder.”

 

“What should we drink to, then?”

 

There’s a serious look on her face when she meets his eye and raises the bottle. “To friendship, and to gratitude.” He nods, feeling a lot lighter with her words. She takes a sip and only slightly winces, and passes it to him. He tips the bottle towards her and repeats her words, then takes a swallow of the strong liquid, each of them feeling the fiery burn as it goes down.

 

Gesturing to the tablet, he raises his eyebrow. “So, are we gonna make the second annual Thanksgiving official and watch that weird ass old movie?”

 

Laughing, she skips her fingers across the scene. “Wouldn’t really be Thanksgiving without it, I guess. I like the political narrative in the middle of the play, but it seems like such a shame to waste those pies.”

 

“People were entertained by some strange things back then. But now we’ve set a precedent and one thing all holidays have in common is rituals. Those dancing turkeys, though… maybe we should come up with something more classy if we’re really going to keep this going every year.”

 

“Well, if you insist on being picky about it, next time I’ll make a point to bring us each our own glass, alright?”

 

“That could work,” he smirks, and as he raises his knee so she can lean the tablet in both of their laps, he stares out the window in front of them. In spite of his own very strong desire to get the hell back down to Earth, sometimes space isn’t that bad.

**Author's Note:**

> A slice of pie to everyone who knows what 'weird ass old movie' they're watching!


End file.
